Battens have been used or sailboats for quite some time in order to control various characteristics of the sail. Typically, the batten is a strip of flexible material (e.g., wood, plastic, fiberglass) that fits into a pocket sewn onto the sail. In one respect, the battens are quite useful in that they help prevent the leech of the sail from curling over. As a result, the sail is prevented from flogging or luffing in the wind, thereby increasing the life of the sail. Moreover, the presence of battens in the sail makes it much easier to stack the sail on the boom when it is lowered.
Full-length batten sails (i.e., sails employing battens that extend across substantially the entire length of the sail from the leech end to the luff end) have become quite popular, and in an attempt to improve the performance characteristics and operation of sailboats employing full-length batten sails, various types of devices which are adapted to be attached to the sail have been proposed. Of particular concern here are devices that permit the compression of the batten to be adjusted.
Devices that allow the compression in the battens to be adjusted are potentially useful on many types of sailboats, including racing sailboats, as well as cruising sailboats, and large sailboats, as well as small sailboats. Devices for adjusting the compression in sail battens are useful in any wind condition because they permit the desired amount of curvature to be imparted to the sail and they remove unwanted wrinkling of the sail cloth, especially along the batten pockets. As is known, being able to provide curvature in the sail during light wind conditions allows one to take advantage of and effectively utilize whatever wind may be present. It can be seen, therefore, that by providing a device for adjusting the compression in the sail battens, the sailboat can be fine-tuned to the prevailing weather conditions.
Various types of devices are currently available for effecting changes in the compression of sail battens. However, many of them suffer from one or more drawbacks or disadvantages. For example, it is not uncommon to find sailboats that employ battens having different shapes (i.e., different cross-sectional shapes) such as circular battens, square battens and generally flat battens. Unfortunately, many of the compression adjusting devices currently available are designed to be used in conjunction with sails employing a batten having one particular shape. The use of such devices is limited, therefore, to the extent that they cannot be employed in conjunction with sails that have been outfitted with battens which are of a different shape.
Another drawback associated with many of the prior art compression adjusting devices relates to their inability to be readily and easily adjusted while under sail. In order to maximize the performance of a sailboat, the compression of the battens and the resulting curvature in the sail should be capable of being quickly adjusted in response to changes in sail cloth distortion and wind conditions. If the compression in the sail batten cannot be altered while under sail or can be altered only with much effort, obtaining full performance from the sailboat will be quite difficult.